Old names of regions · Telugu History

Long before the British districts, the Telugu lands were known by the names of old countries, or nadus.¹² Some, such as Vengi, Kammanadu and Renadu, go back to the early kings whose inscriptions name them.³⁴⁵ Others, such as the Circars and the Ceded Districts, are names from the Muslim and British periods.⁶⁷ This page gives each name, where the sources place it, and when it was used.

About the sources. Old records rarely draw borders. Most of what follows is the opinion of the scholars who edited the inscriptions, or of the district gazetteers, and they often place a country only roughly.⁸⁴ Where a scholar makes an identification, the page names him. For how the borders of the later districts and states changed, see How the map changed. For the land itself, see Land, rivers and water.

Old names of regions

Unified Andhra Pradesh (pre-2014)
Present-day state borders, for orientation
Approximate extent

Rough sketches of the old country names of the Telugu coast and Rayalaseema as the sources place them: Vengi between the mouths of the Krishna and the Godavari; Velanadu in the western Krishna delta; Kammanadu (Karmarashtra) round Ongole and Bapatla; Pakanadu between Ongole and Nellore; and Renandu round Kadapa. The shaded areas are approximate.

Historical boundaries are approximate. Base map: Natural Earth (opens in a new tab) (public domain).

Nadus and sthalas

According to Parabrahma Sastry, the Kakatiya kingdom was divided into nadus (districts) for its government.¹ He lists the important ones named in a Srisailam inscription of Prataparudra of 1313.¹² Among them are Kammanadu, Pakanadu, Renadu, Mulikinadu and Kandurunadu.² He adds other well-known nadus, such as Venginadu, Velanadu, Natavadi and Kondapalli-nadu.²

Each nadu was divided into sthalas, of about twenty villages each.² An officer of the rank of amatya or preggada (minister) governed a nadu.⁹ Lower officers, such as the sthala-karanams (accountants), worked in each sthala.⁹

Andhra and Telingana

The Imperial Gazetteer of Madras (1908) explains “Telingana” as Trilinga, the country of the three lingas of Siva at Kalahasti, Srisailam and Draksharama.¹⁰ It says the name first meant the tract where these three temples stood.¹⁰ Later, Muslim writers used it loosely for the whole country of the Telugus.¹⁰ It thought the Godavari had once been its northern border, dividing it from Kalinga.¹⁰ It called “Andhra” a more exact name, though that too sometimes took in Kalinga.¹⁰

The name was used at Golconda. The Golconda chronicle boasted that under Ibrahim Qutb Shah, “Tulingana, like Egypt, became the mart of the whole world”.¹¹ For the land of Telangana itself, which the Hyderabad gazetteer called “a land of rice and tanks”, see Land, rivers and water.

Vengi

The Imperial Gazetteer places the old kingdom of Vengi between the mouths of the Krishna and the Godavari.⁵ It reached from the coast a long way inland.⁵ Its capital seems to have been at Pedavegi, 8 miles north of Eluru (then Ellore), where the ground is strewn with old remains.⁵ The gazetteer thought Vengi was first a province of the Pallavas and was conquered by the Chalukyas in the 7th century.⁵

D. C. Sircar thought the country was probably already called Vengi in the time of the Salankayana kings.¹² See Vengi, the Salankayanas and the Eastern Chalukyas.

Kammanadu (Karmarashtra)

Two Pallava copper-plate grants, of Skandavarman II and of Simhavarman, give a village called Omgodu in a district called Karmarashtra.³ H. Krishna Sastri identified Karmarashtra with the Kamma-nadu of later Telugu inscriptions.¹³³ G. Jouveau-Dubreuil concluded that the area round Ongole, “watered by the river Gundlakamma”, formed Karmarashtra under the early Pallavas.¹⁴ The Nellore gazetteer of 1942 took it to cover roughly the Ongole and Bapatla taluks.⁸ See Ongole and the Pallavas.

The name lasted into the Kakatiya period. The same gazetteer says that Ganapatideva made Opilisiddhi II, the chief of Pakanadu, govern the Aravela and Kammanadu country for him, about 1224.¹⁵ Kammanadu is also in the list of nadus in the Srisailam inscription of 1313.²

Velanadu

Velanadu, or Velanandu, was the country of the Velanati Chodas, a family of the western Krishna delta.¹⁶¹⁷ E. Hultzsch, who edited their inscriptions, called them “the chiefs of Velanandu”.¹⁷ He called Tsandavolu (Chandavolu) “the capital of the chiefs of Velanandu”.¹⁸ See Chebrolu.

Pakanadu

The Nellore gazetteer of 1942 calls Pakanadu “the land between Ongole and Nellore”.¹⁹ In another place it says that the northern half of Nellore, then called Vikrama Simhapura, was called Pakanadu.²⁰ It also explains that Jaladanki, a village “in Pakanadu”, lay in the Kavali taluk.²¹ One of the Telugu Choda chiefs, Mallideva I, called himself the ruler of Pakanadu.²² See the Telugu Chodas of Nellore and Nellore.

The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 gives Pakanadu a wider sense.²³ It calls the whole Chola province Pakanadu, and its Kadapa part, governed from Pottapi, Merpakanadu, the “west Paka country”.²³

Renadu

Renadu, or Renandu, was the kingdom of the Telugu Cholas, the “Renandu seven thousand” of their inscriptions.⁴ K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya placed it roughly between the Chitravati and the Cheyyeru, two tributaries of the Penna.⁴ In their view it covered most of the old Kadapa (Cuddapah) district and parts of Kolar and Chittoor.⁴ It still appears among the nadus of the Kakatiya kingdom in 1313.²

Kondapalli and Kondavidu

Two hill forts gave their names to whole countries. Kondapalli-nadu was one of the nadus of the Kakatiya period.² Under Muslim rule Kondapalli was the capital of one of the five Northern Circars.²⁴ The Imperial Gazetteer says that the Kondapalli Circar came as far south as the Krishna.⁷

Kondaveedu (Kondavidu), the old Reddi capital, was called Murtazanagar under Muslim rule.²⁵ The province named after it was the “Murtezanuggur, or Condavir” Circar of the British treaties.²⁶²⁷

The Circars and the Ceded Districts

The word Circar comes from sarkar, “a division of land”.⁷ According to the Imperial Gazetteer, the name dated from the Muslim rule of the coast.⁷ There were then five Circars: Guntur, Kondapalli, Ellore (Eluru), Rajahmundry and Chicacole (Srikakulam).⁷ Chicacole covered the later Ganjam and Vizagapatam districts, and Machilipatnam was the chief town of all five.⁷ Under the British, “Northern Circars” meant the five northern districts of Madras: Ganjam, Vizagapatam, Godavari, Kistna and Guntur.⁷

“Ceded Districts” was the name for the lands that the Nizam gave to the British in 1800.⁶ They were Bellary, Cuddapah and part of Kurnool.⁶⁷ In 1908 the four districts of Cuddapah, Kurnool, Bellary and Anantapur were “still known as the Ceded Districts”.⁷ For how the Circars and the Ceded Districts passed to the British, see How the map changed.

Where the sources disagree

How far Pakanadu reached. The Nellore gazetteer of 1942 makes Pakanadu the land between Ongole and Nellore, the northern half of the Nellore country.¹⁹²⁰ The Cuddapah gazetteer of 1915 calls the whole Chola province Pakanadu, with a western part in Kadapa.²³
Where Kammanadu lay. Jouveau-Dubreuil placed Karmarashtra round Ongole, along the Gundlakamma.¹⁴ The Nellore gazetteer of 1942 stretched it over the Ongole and Bapatla taluks.⁸

P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 191 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 192 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Krishna Sastri, “Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants” (1920), p. 254 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
K. A. Nilakanta Sastri and M. Venkataramayya, “Telugu Chola Records from Anantapur and Cuddapah”, Epigraphia Indica XXVII (1956), p. 225 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 193, “Vengi” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 184, “Ceded Districts” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 185, “Ceded Districts” and “Circars, Northern” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹
W. E. Johns, Gazetteer of the Nellore District, brought up to 1938, Vol. A (1942), p. 30 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 193 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 192, “Telingana” (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Golconda chronicle, in Muhammad Qasim Ferishta, tr. John Briggs, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, Vol. III (1829), p. 446 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
D. C. Sircar, The Successors of the Satavahanas in Lower Deccan (1939), p. 77 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩
H. Krishna Sastri, “Two Pallava Copper-plate Grants”, Epigraphia Indica XV (1919–20), p. 250 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
G. Jouveau-Dubreuil, The Pallavas (1917), p. 16 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Johns, Nellore District Gazetteer (1942), p. 44 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩
M. Rama Rao, “History of the Velnadu Chiefs”, Journal of the Andhra Historical Research Society V, pt. 2 (October 1930), p. 65 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
E. Hultzsch, “Pithapuram Pillar Inscription of Prithvisvara; Saka-Samvat 1108”, Epigraphia Indica IV (1897), p. 33 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²
Hultzsch, “Chebrolu Inscription of Jaya” (1899), p. 150 and postscript (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Johns, Nellore District Gazetteer (1942), p. 52 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Johns, Nellore District Gazetteer (1942), p. 40 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩ ↩²
Johns, Nellore District Gazetteer (1942), p. 51 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩
Johns, Nellore District Gazetteer (1942), p. 41 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Paraphrased. ↩
C. F. Brackenbury, Madras District Gazetteers: Cuddapah, Vol. I (1915), p. 31 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 323 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 336 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Henry George Briggs, The Nizam, Vol. I (1861), pp. 70, 234 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩
Imperial Gazetteer: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 186 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩